Wednesday, 18 April 2012

But first the missing photos from yesterday. Richard has carefully cut sections of ply the clad the centre sections of the front and rear bulkheads.

Because the foredeck is so low we only have one step from the bedroom to the cratch. Richard has made a small hatch behind which will be located the water pump and the diesel tank connections for the Lockgate Reflek stove.

At the other end of the cabin the last section of unclad bulkhead is now lined with ply

It looks rather high from the floor to the doors, however there will be three steps to assist entering and exiting Waiouru. We won’t have a set of ladder type steps. Instead, they will be boxed in and used for storage. The stairs will be removable as the single bed in the back cabin will extend to make a double bed. They would be an obstacle if the stairs weren’t removable. When the bed is extended the stairs will fit in the corridor between the galley and the end cabin. This will provide access from the galley to the back cabin when the bed is in the extended position.

The major task for the day was installing the ceiling. It’s approximately 70% complete. Richard and James used the method I described yesterday and I’m pleased they did because the original ceiling battens were not installed at 90° to the sides of the cabin. If they had attempted to install the ceiling ply to the line of the battens the ceiling would have been all over the place. I was also pleased there was very little cutting back of spray foam.

The photo doesn’t provide a good idea of the colour of the laminated ceiling panels. It has been an overcast day with some heavy showers so there has been poor light. Plus a poor photographer!

Tomorrow should see the ceiling finished and a start made on the plugging of the screw holes.

The formica arrived today which should enable Richard and James to make a start on the shower and toilet lining. We are also waiting on the 1” thick ply for the bulkheads/partitions.

This blog is about us, Tom and Jan.
After a decade of travelling from 'down-under' every two years to spend a brief few weeks having a wonderful canal holiday we decided to eliminate the travel and do it full time on retirement. In 2011 we moved to the UK and built Waiouru before spending 6 wonderful years cruising.
In 2017 we sold our lovely boat and moved back to Perth, West Australia where other adventures are on the 'bucket list'.